Tips on Buying Your First Home

When I graduated from high school just over a decade ago, I only had one thing on my mind, buy a home. This would have been considered a fairly unusual goal for an 18 year old to work towards, but being a fairly mature young adult, I had already done a significant amount of research into renting versus purchasing. And though I lived in one of the most desirable cities, the condo market had cooled off significantly. It was a buyer's market, and I was on the hunt for some new digs. But way before I made the phone call to a real estate agent, I followed several steps that led me to successful home ownership.

1) Can I Afford This? An alarming number of people are so enamored with the idea of owning a home, they run off to the bank to get pre-approved for a mortgage well before they've had a good look at their budget to see if they can actually afford to take on a mortgage! Your paralegal salary may be enough to keep you in Jimmy Choos, but buying a home is so much more than mortgage payments! If you are contemplating home ownership, you owe it to yourself to work through your budget with a fine tooth comb, leaving absolutely no possible financial roadblock unexplored. After you've paid the rest of your expenses, tucked away some money for retirement, and some for savings, what's left? What's left is what you'll have to work with when you pay for your new home every month. If you don't have this number in the forefront of your mind, you leave yourself open for a rude awakening when the first mortgage payment hits.

2)  Getting Pre-approved. I've always thought of getting pre-approved similar to getting engaged! You go through all the planning of buying a home, but at the end of the day, you still need to close the deal! When you get pre-approved, the bank or lender is essentially letting you know how much you can spend on your new home. In Canada, a mortgage broker will generally calculate your down payment into this pre-approved figure.

3) Thoroughly explore mortgage options. There are any number of allotments of time given to pay off a mortgage. Here in Canada, home buyers generally opt for a 20 or 25 year mortgage. I believe in the USA, a standard mortgage is generally around 30 years. A financial adviser will not only help you determine the best amortization rate, but will explain the benefits and drawbacks of a fixed or variable (adjustable) mortgage. Knowing what you can spend helps narrow down your search, and immediately lets you know what neighbourhoods you can afford!

4) Shop for a real estate agent. Once you get pre-approved, and you're ready to hit the ground running, it's time to find an agent. This can be as tricky as finding a good lawyer! You want to find someone that you feel you can trust. The first thing I did when I started shopping for a new home, was ask friends and family, and found someone fabulous! Going with a larger agency like Remax or Century21 is beneficial because you gain access to individuals with vast property knowledge, and in many cases, specializations. For example, if you are looking at purchasing a property in a particular area, you'll want an agent who's going to know the in's and out's of that neighbourhood.

5) Understanding the offer process. There is nothing more exciting than finding the house of your dreams, but there's nothing more heartbreaking than watching it slip through your fingers as someone outbids you. There is some strategy to putting down an offer, if your real estate agent is good, they'll up your odds. Keep your cool, and for the sake of your health, always be prepared to walk away from the deal. There are hundreds of thousands of houses, and there's no reason to self-destruct financially. Be patient, and you'll get what you want.

The Benefits of Filing Your Taxes Early

Yes, it's only March, but the personal income tax deadline is approaching rather quickly. And it would seem that, despite the fact that most T4 forms or in the States, the W-2 form, are mailed out near the end of January or early February, most tax payers wait to the eleventh hour to file their taxes. Why is that? Believe it or not, there are some serious benefits to filing your taxes early.

1) The month's of January, February and March are much quieter, so whether you're dealing with the IRS or Revenue Canada, you won't run into excessive line-ups at the post-office. It was estimated that in 2010, up to 70% of tax payers were filing their taxes electronically, but that still leaves a whopping 30% who file their taxes through the mail. If you are standing in obscene post-office line-ups in the month of April, you run the risk of your taxes not being filed on time which can lead to penalties.

2) Filing early means you're not worrying about it for the first three months of the year! Listening to my friends complain of sleepless nights and stomach ulcers always made me scratch my head. Whether you owe money or not, why drag it out, and cause yourself more stress?

3) Reduce your risk of filing an inaccurate return! There are few things in life more stressful than a tax audit, and one of the top reasons that individuals or businesses are audited, is because someone has made an error during the filing process. If you are filing your tax return at the last minute, you are far more likely to make an error under the duress of a deadline, than if you were to file with a month or two of breathing room!

4) The faster you apply, if you are owed money, the faster you get your money! If you file early enough, you eliminate the temptation to get an "instant refund" from a third party that will take a huge junk out of your return. File early, beat the rush, and get every penny of your hard earned money to put back in your pocket!

Time to Organize for Tax Season!

It may only be the end of February, but I know that many of you are starting to feel the kind of anxiety that has the potential to drive you to distraction during the waking hours, and refuses to let you get a wink of sleep at night. It's tax time, and you have a mountain of paperwork sitting in the corner mocking you as you pace nervously in front of it. Unless you have an accounting degree, you're going to need to organize this chaos to hand off to someone who's qualified. And the more disorganized you are, the more money they're probably going to charge you, which means less money in your pocket on your return! Stop the procrastinating, turn off the television, turn on some music, and let's get down to business.

1) Schedule some time. Look, this isn't a 5 minute task, you're going to need to invest some serious man-hours into this project. If you have time to meet your friends for drinks, you have time to organize your taxes, so stop procrastinating!

2) Get yourself a filing cabinet, an accordion folder or just a box with dividers. Put someplace that's accessible all year round, so you can add paperwork to it over the course of the tax year.

3) Organize your expenses. Get yourself some accounting software like Quicken or Quickbooks and organize your utility bills, expense receipts, medical bills etc. Not only will you make things easier for your accountant when they starting filling in the boxes, but you'll begin to get a clear picture of your financial year in review! Maybe it's time to make some changes.

4) Are you drowning in receipts (I know I am!) consider investing in a nifty receipt scanner like Neat Receipt  that copies and electronically files receipts. Something to consider, if you have homeowners insurance, you are generally required to produce receipts (or copies) for the items that you need replaced. Neat Receipt is a great option for you!

5) When everything's all neat, organized, and you're ready to present it to your tax accountant, write down a list of questions that you may for them and paperclip it to your tax 2011 folder. Remember, put an efficient filing system in place now, and every tax year ever after will be a piece of cake!

How to Save at The Grocery Store

I live on the West Coast of Canada and I can guarantee you that I pay some of the highest food costs in the country. With the exception of northern populations, where the food is flown in daily and weekly, I know what its like to have sticker shock at the cash register. You have 10 things in your basket, and all of a sudden, your bill is $100! Yikes! In these difficult economic times, families can use all the help they can get to ensure their loved ones get the nutrition they need to take on the world every day. Here are a few tips that I've picked up along the way that have helped me save on my food budget and helped me get the most out of my purchases.

1) Never shop when you're hungry! This is an old, but very wise tip that my mother taught me before I left home. If you're hungry, you're more likely to throw things in the basket you don't need.

2) Make a list. Don't wing it, give yourself a parameter and stay in it. Stay on budget.

3) Don't buy everything at one store. This was a tough one for me to understand. Doing all my shopping in one grocery store seemed so convenient. I learned very quickly that saving money, and getting a good quality product trumps convenience any day of the week! So for my meat, I always go to a butcher and I purchase my produce from stores that sell produce only. Not only are their prices much lower than the grocery store, but they have a far more varied selection.

4) Stick the outside of the grocery store. I can guarantee you that what you spend on fresh produce, meat and dairy will be dwarfed by all the crap that you're buying from the middle of the store. There will of course be items up the middle of the store that you might need like cereal, soups and pastas, but limit these.

5) Buy whole cuts, rather than pieces. When you buy meat in pieces, grocery stores will mark it up substantially. Learn how to cut up a chicken,  or how to cut up pork chops from pork loins. Not only will you turn singular meals into five or six, but you'll save yourself a boatload of cash.

How to Stage Your Home on a Budget

I bought my first apartment at the tender age of twenty. It was a rare time in the market when rent was more expensive than a mortgage, and the market was teeming with apartments ripe for the taking. I lived in it for three blissful years, and luck struck again! My partner and I were beginning to outgrow our space and the market was simultaneously taking off. It was a buyers market and we would have been crazy not to jump at the opportunity, so we did! We acquired a real estate agent, and had our first meeting. We had taken exceptionally good care of our apartment over the years, and our agent relayed to us that our place didn't require any major work, however, we might want to consider staging it, to ensure our chances of getting quality offers. I had no idea what staging was, but I was about to learn.

Staging is adding or removing pieces to a space to make it looked lived in. When a buyer walks into a space, it's essential that the furniture and home decor they see, helps them visualize themselves living in the space. Apparently, our apartment was in desperate need of some staging, but we were budget constrained, so we had to get creative. Now, you don't need to become an interior designer, but it does help if you have an eye for design. So it's time to marry your creative skills with your ability to make a dollar out of 15 cents.

1) De-clutter and de-personalize. Sometimes, the best things in life are free! Though you may think your family photos are endearing, buyers will walk in and judge, immediately. You want to maximize your bottom line, so getting rid of anything that might put a name to a face is important. You want them to feel like it's their home, not that they're walking through a stranger's home.

2) Colour evokes emotion. This is in expensive, but ingenious way to change the natural flow of the space. With $60 worth of paint, you can take a room from ultra personal, to sell-ready chic.

3) Home Decor. Those gorgeous rooms in House & Home Magazine are brimming with furnishings that probably cost more than your entire house! It's not necessary to blow your budget on fancy vases, luxurious window coverings and silk pillow covers. I can guarantee that no one stepping into your home is not going to buy your home because the pillow covers are the cotton ones that you picked up at the Target sale! If your couches and love seats look like they need a little refreshing, pick up some inexpensive accent pillows from Ikea.

And lastly, don't worry about making it perfect, that is what your real estate agent makes the big bucks for!

How to Save for a Wedding

Your wedding is one of the most important days of your life, and the most stressful! There are a million things that have the potential to go wrong, and even if you're in the hands of the most capable wedding planner in the biz, brides still manage to give themselves a coronary over the smallest details. But before you get to that perfect, stress-filled day, you need the green, the mula, the dollar bills, you need a whole lotta cash to make your Cinderella story come to life. Here are a couple of pointers to help you budget for your big day!

1) Venue - Book ahead! It sounds simple and obvious, but I can't tell you how many women I know who've ruminated over a venue for so long, they've missed a deadline and have to run around looking for an alternate space. Booking ahead also allows brides to negotiate better rates. DON'T BOOK A SATURDAY! This one of the cardinal rules. Saturdays are almost always the most expensive day, and a venue will charge you a premium price. Also consider booking a public place like a park, university, or an art gallery. Think out of the box, be creative, and revel in how much you'll save! 

2) Flowers - If you must have flowers, consider locally grown, native floral arrangements. The best option of course, is to eliminate them  from your wedding entirely and consider going green! There are hundreds of wedding coordinators that provide environmentally friendly weddings.  

3) Food & Booze - Personally, I think the food is one of the most important aspects of wedding. Food brings people together and if it's good, everyone is in a better mood! There's no need to cheap out on food, you just have to be conscious of where your money is going. If you are serving appetizers, consider the cost difference between having servers versus having the appetizers stationary at a station. As for the main course, consider a meal with ingredients that are local and in-season. If you have an open bar, consider serving only wine, beer and soda, and charge cash for spirits. 

Keeping Teens On Budget

Most of us haven't made the best financial decisions at one point or another in our lives. We've all been guilty of racking up our credit cards a handful of times, or we've purchased something that we really didn't need, or we took that extravagant vacation when we really should have been saving our pennies. And as adults, we have to take ownership of our financial responsibilities (or irresponsibility!), but when we begin having children, we don't have the luxury of throwing caution to the wind. As our children mature, being the little sponges that they are, they become very aware of the correlation between money and responsibility. We don't want our teens making the same mistakes that we did, and we certainly don't want them ever feeling the crippling pressure that debt can create. You don't need to have an accounting degree to teach your children financial responsibility, but if you're struggling with how to set out a plan, here are a few pointers.

1) Sit down with your teen and have an open discussion about what they think their expenses are. They might have a cellphone, or a car, or maybe a membership to a gym. Find out what their financial goals are and educate them about the benefits of putting money away for what they want, rather than spending money on impulse purchases.

2) Don't give your teen a credit card. Just don't. They need to learn that if the money isn't in the bank, it's irresponsible to rely on someone else (the credit card company) to pay for something. If you do decide to give your teen a credit card, make sure it's in your name, and the limit is extremely low, like $300, that way if they "rack it up", it's not financially impossible to pay it off.

3) Teach them to be a  wise consumer. Teenagers love to shop. Especially the girls. They are inundated with ads in magazines, billboards, TV that all tell them to shop, shop, shop! So forget about trying to get that out of their system! The best way to combat their shopping urges, is to teach them how to be the best consumer they can be. Teach them to research products before they buy them!